I have been involved in photography for a very long time and have seen enormous changes and advances in technologies over the last 50-60 years. All through this time, those of us involved at the profesional level have noticed a persistent theme from amateurs and gear-hounds, that if they only had a specific piece of equipment, which for various reasons was just out of their reach, or unavailable, or soon-to-be-developed, their work would improve immensely and they would be able to overcome the present limitations of their equipment.

Truth is, most photographic gear is capable of performance far, far beyond the capabilities of most photographers. Compelling, technically good, artistic images are made by the photographer, not lenses. There really is no such thing as a poor Nikon lens (or a poor lens by any major manufacturer for that matter) despite all the hair-splitting and hand-wringing by reviewers and people reading, comparing and quoting the data from such reviews.

The faults you attribute to the lenses you have named are non-existent in real-world image making. Outside of some very highly specialized industrial, technical and commercial photography, superb results can be had with anything that is available "off-the-shelf."

Where are your images of cityscapes that suffer from the imaginary shortcomings of your Nikon equipment? Show me the optical problems you're complaining about in such pictures. The combination of the the D800/e and any of Nikon's "normal" lenses is capable of excellent work under any kind of assignment. At the f/ stops one would use for such work, there isn't a reviewer in the universe who could distinguish a Nikkor from a Zeiss, a Leica, Zuiko, Voightlander, etc. In fact, if you or they were given a hundred random prints from a small group of excellent photographers, using all makes of lenses at random, making images as they usually do, you would never be able to match any print to any lens except by random chance.

Where is the studio work you mention that taxes your lens so badly? Your gallery shows work that doesn't begin to scratch the capabilities of your equipment.

I am not trying to be negatively critical. I'm trying to give you some constructive advice. I think if you go out and concentrate on acquiring the technical and artistic skill required by the guy behind the camera, and do a lot of the kind of photography that you are just talking about, your gear will do just fine